Hearing set for plea agreement for Jeremiah’s mother
If convicted on all the charges, Tracy Ann Peña, 36, could face a maximum 55 years sentence, with 36 mandatory
The First Judicial District Attorney’s Office has reached a plea agreement with Tracy Ann Peña, accused of child abuse resulting in death and other crimes in relation to her 13-year-old son Jeremiah Valencia.
Although the details of the agreement have not been made public, lawyers on both sides are asking District Judge Mathew Wilson to consider it during a hearing Nov. 12 or Nov. 13, according to a motion filed Friday.
Prosecutors and Peña’s attorney had been negotiating about a potential plea for weeks. District Attorney Marco Serna declined to give details about the agreement though in a text message said he could “confirm that we have come to an agreement pending the conclusion of the hearing.”
Defense lawyer Michael Rosenfield did not immediately return a call Monday evening seeking comment.
Peña, 36, faces two counts of child abuse resulting in death and great bodily harm, three counts of tampering with evidence, six counts of conspiracy to tamper with evidence and one count of obstructing an investigation of child abuse or neglect in connection with Jeremiah’s death.
If convicted on all of those charges, Serna has said, Peña could face a maximum sentence of 55 years, minus one day. Thirty-six of those years would be mandatory, he added.
Jeremiah’s body was found inside a plastic container in a roadside grave near Nambé in January. Police said Peña and her late boyfriend Thomas Wayne Ferguson buried him in November 2017 after Ferguson and his son, Jordan Nuñez, then 19, tortured and beat Jeremiah to death.
Jeremiah was kept in a dog cage, made to wear adult diapers and received electric shocks through a dog collar preceding his death, according to police.
Medical examiners also have found evi-
dence that the boy may have been burned and sexually assaulted, according to search warrant affidavits written by sheriff ’s detectives.
Ferguson — who has a substantial criminal record that includes previous convictions for domestic violence — was charged with firstdegree murder before he hanged himself in the county jail in April.
Nuñez has now become the focus of the state’s case, with prosecutors saying he may have dealt the final blow that resulted in Jeremiah’s death.
Nuñez is being held without bond awaiting trial at the request of prosecutors who argue he’s too dangerous to be released into the community. His lawyer appealed that determination to the state Supreme Court last month, but the high court upheld the ruling.
Santa Fe County sheriff ’s deputies learned about Jeremiah Valencia’s death in late January, after Peña, who was incarcerated for a separate crime at the Santa Fe County jail, told another inmate the boy had been killed by Ferguson, according to a warrant for his arrest.
The inmate tipped off police and sparked the sheriff ’s office investigation that uncovered Valencia’s body, which was buried near N.M. 503.
Jeremiah’s now 13-year-old sister told investigators Ferguson often had kept the boy in a dog kennel and that Jeremiah sometimes had to use a wheelchair because of his injuries, search warrant affidavits say.
Peña entered a plea of not guilty in March, but according to a stipulated request for a change of plea setting filed Friday, she now wishes to change her plea.